Obama: "It is not a myth, it is math"

Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - 01:37

April 8 - President Barack Obama launches two new executive actions aimed at increasing transparency for women's pay in a continuing effort to ensure women are paid equally to their male counterparts for similar work. Rough Cut (no reporter narration).

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ROUGH CUT - NO REPORTER NARRATION
President Barack Obama launched two new executive actions Tuesday aimed at increasing transparency about women's pay in a continuing effort to ensure women are paid equally to their male counterparts for similar work.
Joined at the White House by women including Lilly Ledbetter, a woman who fought against her own pay discrimination, Obama signed one executive order preventing federal contractors from "retaliating" against workers who discuss their compensation.
The second executive order he signed Tuesday directed the U.S. secretary of labor to create regulations that require federal contractors to submit to the government summary data on employee compensation including details on sex and race.
The Labor Department would use such data to encourage voluntary compliance with equal pay laws.
The move comes ahead of consideration in the U.S. Senate for the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would update equal pay laws by barring all employers - not just federal contractors - from punishing workers who share information about their pay.
Obama has taken other executive actions this year in an effort to show independence from Congress, where partisan divisions have complicated efforts to advance other White House priorities such as immigration reform.

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